


Cup Running Over

by hafren



Category: Hornblower (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-19
Updated: 2009-11-19
Packaged: 2017-10-03 09:15:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hafren/pseuds/hafren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lt Buckland gets drunk at Kingston</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cup Running Over

It has a warm look to it. That dark, velvety redness glowing through the glass. I sit staring at it, thinking it might warm the cold, hollow place inside me.

_My old lieutenant._ True, I was certainly not a young one any longer, but I was far from alone in that. The Navy is full of men like me. Old hands, who have had so long to learn our business, it comes natural. I could have carried out my duties.... in my sleep, I was about to say.

I wash the wine around my mouth, holding it for a while. I am remembering how Clive used to look when he was drunk. Swaying, slurring, slightly ridiculous. I can see the looks of contempt on those young faces. The young lieutenants. Who needed no help to make the world look bearable. Well, my young friends, the surgeon was once like you; the acting captain, too.

Old lieutenants. Yes, we know no further advancement is like to come our way, but there are reasons. Commands are scarce and candidates many: opportunity has been wanting, we had not the good fortune to run across an action in which we could have distinguished ourselves, or we had not the influence and connections others could boast. It was all true; it warmed us and made the world bearable, as did the assurance that where we were, we filled our place well. We know what belongs to our rank; we know ourselves at home in it. If promotion should come after all, we make no doubt we could rise to it, but being dependable - even indispensable - in our present place has its comforts.

When the wine goes down, it warms my stomach, but it leaves a strange, metallic aftertaste that jars my teeth. I take another swallow.

Might have gone on believing I could make a captain, if... if I had never had to try. I was good at relaying orders, translating decisions into action. How could I know that deciding for myself would make this... this chill, sick vacancy happen inside me? That all the chances, risks, paths would rise up before me and paralyse me, so that I could take no path and no decision?

The taste is heavy, rather like meat. Wouldn't drink it for itself. But the warmth... the way it makes things seem further off, the more you take. Clive... I am beginning to understand Clive very well. A sawbones, none better at whipping off a limb after a battle. But it was a damaged mind he had to mend, one he had valued dear, and he had no notion where to start.

What must it be, to know yourself fit for anything? To welcome each new difficulty as a chance to shine?

The three of them, so certain. Leaping into emptiness, trusting themselves to air and sea. And each other. As if... as if...

Didn't mean them any harm. Any of them. Angry... spoke in haste.

_ I alone pushed the captain._ His face, so white. After the battle, his shirt was soaked in blood. Hornblower's, too. In Kennedy's blood. Bush's. All the same really.

That moment, when I first knew I was in command, that lightness of spirit. Still recall. Only a moment.

Blood running all over the table. A smell of meat.

Wasn't so mad, Sawyer. Knew me, anyway. Where I belonged. Never knew myself. Thought it was what I wanted most... chance to prove...

That last time I saw him. What I said. _I never wanted any of this._ And I knew for the first time that it was true.


End file.
